The present invention relates generally to designing electronic circuits such as integrated circuits, and more particularly to mitigating IR-drop in such circuits.
A power distribution network for an integrated circuit distributes power and ground voltages from pad locations to all devices in an integrated circuit. Shrinking device dimensions, faster switching frequencies, and increasing power consumption in deep sub-micrometer technologies cause large switching currents to flow in the power and ground networks. Due to the resistance of the pathways constituting the network, there is a voltage drop across the network, commonly referred to as IR-drop. IR-drop reduces the effective voltage seen by integrated circuit elements and may negatively affect circuit performance.